The lackluster results at the various UN General Assembly high-level meetings on global health last week have advocates and policymakers alike wondering what those disappointing outcomes signal for the future.
This week, we begin with Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, former president of Croatia, drawing on her experiences as a public servant and reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic's aftermath. Recent efforts to improve international dialogue and cooperation have been important, but Grabar-Kitarović argues, to paraphrase Robert Frost, that the best way out is always through: successfully conclude the ongoing pandemic accord negotiations and prioritize the human security imperative in a world beset by many crises.
Our next contributor, Madeline Moberg, warns that as extreme weather events and disasters become more common, so do cases of carbon monoxide poisoning due to people using heating and cooking devices indoors amid power outages. She points to Texas's 2021 winter storm and Turkey's recent earthquake as examples where people died from such poisoning, and notes that educating the public and installing carbon monoxide alarms in homes can help prevent those kinds of deaths.
We close out the week with journalist Sneha Khedkar writing on how policymakers can ease the burden of cervical cancer in India. Because stigma and resource constraints keep many women from undergoing pap smears and other traditional screening methods, researchers are encouraging self-screening and visual inspection with acetic acid tests. Those methods are still being validated, but early results are promising and could offer a scalable way to strengthen cervical cancer screening in India.
As always, thank you for reading.—Thomas J. Bollyky, Editor
